A Facebook reality check

Until recently, Facebook was on a publicity roll. The social networking site could seemingly do no wrong, judging by the wildly speculative commentary coming from business and technology bloggers. "Will Facebook Kill Blogs?" mused BusinessWeek's Rob Hof. InfoWeek's Stephen Wellman asked whether "Facebook Could Challenge Google And Become The Remote Control For The Web". Henry Blodget uncharacteristically gushed about revenue potential, estimating a "$1 billion run-rate" within a year.

The analysis puzzled me. Sure, there are a lot of people on Facebook, but the Internet is littered with the husks of once-popular services and communities whose users eventually moved on because of poor functionality, more compelling competition, unrealistic business plans, or other issues.

In Facebook's case, the gushing predictions seemed out of touch with the user reality. I've been on Facebook since 2004, and the site is flawed in many ways. It's not just the dorm-room design, which relates to its original mission as a Harvard hookup network. The problems go much deeper than that.

The biggest problem: Basic functionality is broken across the site. When I was on the site yesterday, search was down for part of the afternoon. Many external widgets don't work, or don't work well. Facebook's own tools don't always work -- for instance, "Notes," which is supposed to update imported RSS feed headlines in profiles, has never updated for me since I installed it in my profile in February.

The second biggest problem: The overall user experience. Facebook gets a C- in my book for the UI, customization options, and the way new features are rolled out. For instance, the profile options are overwhelming, yet certain features can't be disabled without killing something else that you'd rather keep. Users are frequently forced to navigate through counterintuitive links, language, and processes to get the content that they want. Take message notifications. They are sent by email, forcing users to log onto the site to read them. Wouldn't it make more sense to simply email the message along with the notification?   

In terms of new functionality, it seems that very little thinking or planning goes into major platform upgrades and feature rollouts. They are often launched haphazardly, without thinking through the user experience or the potential impact on their personal networks. This caused Facebook founder and CEO Zuckerberg a lot of grief at this time last year when there was a user revolt over the introduction of Facebook feeds, but I was reminded of this problem again yesterday after trying out a new feature, "invite AIM buddies."  Originally, I had expected the tool to allow me to review and select the people on my buddy list before sending out the invitations. That did not happen. Everyone on my buddy list was invited, including people who I did not want to invite -- such as people who are already in my LinkedIn network.

Moreover, the invitation was sent via a suspicious instant message. The sender of the IM was "Facebook" (not me, although my AIM handle was mentioned in the IM text) and the message included links which prompted the recipients to sign in or create an account. Several colleagues were immediately suspicious -- it looked like a phishing attempt or virus -- and they contacted me to check to see if I had really sent the invitation.

To be fair to Zuckerberg and his team, Facebook is dealing with massive growth and they are aware of many of the problems noted above. For instance, a Facebook developer blog yesterday listed a host of API and markup language updates, and admitted that "deceptive and misleading notifications" are a problem for the company. Nevertheless, Facebook has to do more to improve the user experience, and fix the many broken parts of the site. The company also must avoid the temptation to believe giddy predictions about valuation and world domination. Users just want an experience that works, and works well. They will start to abandon ship if Facebook doesn't keep up with their needs, and something better comes along.